


Slip of the Tongue

by Bullfinch



Category: Dragon Age II
Genre: discussion of past physical/emotional abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-14
Updated: 2015-07-14
Packaged: 2018-04-09 08:05:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,905
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4340603
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bullfinch/pseuds/Bullfinch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fenris accidentally calls Hawke “master.” It’s a mindless mistake, like calling your teacher “mom,” but it’s still Very Awkward for everyone involved, especially for Hawke, and Fenris has to clear the whole thing up. Fill for a prompt.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Slip of the Tongue

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: Original prompt can be found [over here](http://dragonage-kink.livejournal.com/13010.html?thread=56615122#t56615122). Upon rereading it, this fill is...looser than I'd meant it to be. My bad. Takes place late in Act 1, so they’ve known each other for ~8 months or so. I’m a big proponent of platonic hand-holding but you can look at this as pre-Fenris/Hawke if you want.

It’s hot on the Wounded Coast, the breeze off the sea weak today, not enough to move the heavy, humid air that makes Fenris’s clothes stick to his skin under his armor like wet leaves. He crouches, putting his back to the sun, his shadow falling over the hacked-apart corpse before him. Fenris regards the man’s agonized expression with disinterest. Blood pours from the messy wounds—not in spurts, the man’s heart isn’t beating anymore, but there’s still a lot of it, and he shuffles to one side so it doesn’t run over his toes. Instead it soaks the sand beside him. He wipes his sword off on the man’s tunic. The sun’s reflection glances off the clean blade, and he rises, running his thumb over the steel to remove some stubborn streaks of red.

“Waste of life.” Aveline’s ridding her axe of the worst of the gore. “Will they ever just leave us alone?”

“I doubt it. We do look a bit ragtag, minus you, anyway.” Hawke nods at Aveline, in her guardsman’s uniform. “They probably think we’re easy targets.”

“Hardly.” Anders clutches his side. “But d’you think you could try to keep them away from me next time? I’m delicate.”

Fenris thinks briefly of staying quiet, then decides against it. “Of course. Come our next engagement, that shall be my foremost priority.”

Before Anders can snap back, Aveline lets out an exasperated groan. “Will you  _please_  stop going at each other’s throats, the both of you? I’ve already got a headache, I don’t need it to get any worse.”

“I didn’t say anything,” Anders mutters.

Hawke’s come forward, drifting between the two of them (as he does, Fenris has learned, always puts himself in the middle of a fight to deflect the damage or, if necessary, absorb it). “Is anyone hurt?”

Fenris lets the irritation drain out of him—for now, anyway, for Hawke’s sake, and Aveline’s—and sheathes his sword. “No, master.”

The silence is so absolute Fenris thinks at first the other replies have been dampened by the humid air, as if by snowfall. Then he realizes what’s just come out of his mouth.

He shuts his eyes.

“Fenris—“ Hawke’s voice is small, missing any of the confidence that normally glows from him like the halo from a full moon. “Do you really—“

“What?” Fenris turns, afraid of what he’ll see—and his fears are met, to the letter. The damned mage is staring (of course he can’t resist) with his mouth gaped open like a fish, and Hawke looks as if someone’s just told him his Mabari died. Fenris scrambles to put things right. “It was a mistake! A simple slip of the tongue.”

The explanation does nothing. Anders is still staring, Hawke is still devastated. And Fenris feels, apart from the humid air on his skin, the hot flush of shame working its way up his neck, to his cheeks, all the way to the tips of his ears. He whips around to hide the redness, the muscles in his arms tensing as his slim fingers curl into fists—

“Don’t worry, Fenris,” Aveline says, coming to his rescue here as she has in battle countless times. “I can’t tell you how many of my patrol-mates have called me ‘mum’ at one point or another.” Then she heaves a sigh. “Listen, I’m boiling in my armor. What do you say we head back to Kirkwall? The sooner we get out of this sun, the better.”

“Good idea.” Anders takes her up on the offer of escape, discomfort creasing his voice at first but smoothing out as he talks. “Maker knows I could go for a nice long drink of water right about now. Although I’ll likely have my work cut out for me as soon as I get back…this heat isn’t kind to the elderly.”

Fenris strides purposefully after them. He brushes past Hawke on the way. Hawke, who’s still standing there, the hurt fracturing his face like a glass Fenris has dropped and broken, a hundred shining fragments scattered hopeless at his feet.

——

The trek back to Kirkwall is rife with chatter. Anders and Aveline summon a truly massive effort to fill the air with commentary on anything they can think of—their back-and-forth sometimes splitting to expose a faintly hysterical undertone, when they run out of topics (“That’s—an interesting-looking plant over there. Anders, is it used in any herbal medicines?” “Er—no, not that I can think of, but it looks like it’s related to feverfew, you can see by how the petals overlap. You wouldn’t believe how much feverfew you can find in the Vimmarks…”). Fenris can see the panic on their faces when the discussion falls dead and the quiet starts to stretch like an overfilled waterskin, the both of them straining to come up with a topic before it bursts. Fenris remains unused to instigating conversation; he does endeavor to supplement where he can, although the act of sharing such trivial remarks with the mage is disconcerting, to say the least.

All of it to cover up Hawke’s silence.

Hawke is normally the chatty one—he seems to be an endless well of stories, either of his danger-fraught existence as a particularly intrepid young man (falling off cliffs, eating poisonous mushrooms out of curiosity, nearly losing half his toes to frostbite) or of the bizarre mishaps in Kirkwall that he seems to attract like flies drawn to honey. But today he says nothing, simply trails along, staring at the sand, the hard pack of dirt, the cobbles under the Kirkwall gates.

Anders splits off first to head back to Darktown, his relief nearly palpable, with a “Have a good evening.” And Hawke soon after, drifting off into Lowtown back to Gamlen’s house.

Leaving just Fenris and Aveline ascending the long staircase to Hightown. She grasps his arm briefly. “Give it a day or two. He’ll be back to normal soon enough.”

“It was a mistake,” Fenris mutters.

“We both know that,” Aveline replies. “I think Hawke is…a bit sensitive, that’s all.”

Fenris snorts.  _“Sensitive?”_

“It’s true! Things just… _get_  to him.”

Fenris thinks back and realizes she’s telling the truth. Every hurt, every injustice Hawke witnesses pains him as if the injury were personal. And here, where it  _was_ personal—

But it wasn’t an injury, it was a mistake! Fenris grits his teeth in frustration. This entire situation is ridiculous. Still, he hates the fact that he’s hurt Hawke (however unintentionally). Hawke’s never been anything but kind to him. Fenris never expected to meet anyone like that, to whom he was worth more as a person than a reward from his old master—piles of gold, no doubt, not to mention favor, power, surely more than a Ferelden refugee could dream of.

Yet here they both are.

“I’ll see you later, Fenris.” Aveline heads off toward the viscount’s keep.

Fenris stands in the middle of the square, the sun-warmed sandstone smooth under his feet. Orange light lances between the high buildings with their Marches-style moldings, the carved eagles bent imperious over the slow wind of the dwindling crowds below. The reaching shadows of the pillars cross Fenris’s path as if to say,  _you cannot go this way. You should not be here._

He shouldn’t, by any right. His three-year flight condenses into a restless, murky shroud, a shade over his vision. He was a slave. A fugitive. He was nothing.

And then Hawke asked him to stay, so he did.

Fenris strides across the square. A pillar’s shadow falls across him, then slips away, sliding from his shoulders like a cloak he doesn’t care for, that he decided didn’t suit him after all.

——

It’s hot.

Fenris opens all the windows, strips down until he’s just in his trousers, and lies on the stone floor of the hall. It’s not as cool as he was hoping.

So he pours himself a cup of water. After a moment’s consideration, he gulps it down and refills the cup with wine. There. He’ll still be hot, but at least he won’t care as much. About the heat, nor about Hawke’s stricken silence dogging him like promise he hasn’t kept yet.

Fenris drinks half the cup in one go, then ends up coughing half of that out when it slides down his windpipe. He wipes his chin, faintly embarrassed despite the fact that there’s no one there to see him. The rest he drinks with a greater degree of care. When he’s finished he gazes into the dark rim at the bottom, the dregs that well there. He’s still unsettled, unable to stop thinking of Hawke’s devastated expression at the Wounded Coast. He feels as if he should fix it but hasn’t the slightest clue what to do—he already explained that it was a simple blunder, what more could—

A hesitant knock at the door.

Fenris nearly drops the cup. He stands frozen, leaning against the kitchen table. Who is that? Hawke, obviously, but maybe it could be someone—no, it’s Hawke, this is a chance to set things right—

Another knock. Fenris plants the cup on the table and goes to the door, wrenching it open before he loses his courage.

It’s Hawke, looking as miserable as he has all day. “Can I—come in?”

It’s only at that moment Fenris realizes he’s still in just his trousers, and he curses himself, the blush rising again up his neck and cheeks as he turns and gestures for Hawke to enter. “Would you like some wine?”

“Er—no, I’m all right, thanks.”

Fenris crosses the hall. Damn it all. That cup he drank hasn’t had time to get to his head yet either. It looks like they’ll both be doing this cold. “Let me find some clothes, since I apparently neglected to do so before I greeted you.”

“Oh, no, I completely understand. It’s scorching outside.” Hawke stops halfway up the stairs, lets Fenris go. “Although let me assure you, Lowtown is worse.”

Fenris flicks through the shirts crumpled in his bureau. (He never much saw the point in folding.) For a moment he considers staying here. Perhaps if his absence drags on long enough, Hawke will simply leave and then they won’t have to talk about this. Then he decides that would be unspeakably rude, and he drags a shirt over his head, coming back out of the bedroom.

Hawke is still standing there, clutching the railing. “I know you said it was just a mistake.”

The shirt is caught on itself, and Fenris tugs at it until it covers his stomach and hangs as it’s supposed to. “It was.”

Hawke hesitates—then the words all burst out in a rush. “But are you  _sure?_  Because if it wasn’t, Fenris, I need you to know you don’t  _have_ to—“

“Hawke!”

He shuts up, flinching back, drifting down one step.

Fenris heaves a sigh. It seems this conversation is going to happen whether he likes it or not. “Let’s sit down first, shall we?”

They go to the kitchen. Fenris has cleaned out one of the sitting rooms, but those plush chairs are unpleasant in this heat. So he drags out a tall wooden stool and sits down, with Hawke on the adjacent side of the table.

Where to begin? Fenris starts with reversing the damage. “I don’t think of you as my master. I know I can choose to not come with you when you ask for my help, or to leave altogether. I follow you because I  _want_  to. You’ve done a lot of good, and I like being a part of that. I…was never able to before.” The image of the Fog Warriors, always floating just below the surface, blooms vivid now in his mind. Dozens dead, those who had taken him in with no question, no expectation of reward. Cleaved by his own hands.

Then he realizes he’s stopped talking, and hurries on. “It was automatic. After a fight, he’d ask me if I was hurt. And I’d answer. That’s all.”

Hawke’s hands are clasped together on the wooden surface. “Danarius would tell you who to kill.”

“Yes. Seheron natives, freedom fighters who attacked his slave caravans…sometimes sacrifices for his vile magic.” So the blood would spurt not onto Danarius’s ornate robes but onto Fenris instead, warm and wet—and the sight would always frighten him as he thought frantically,  _am I hurt? where is my injury?_  and then remember it wasn’t his blood—

“Now I tell you who to kill,” Hawke says, in a small voice.

Fenris can’t help rolling his eyes. “I’ve told you, it’s my  _choice._  These people would hurt you, or others, for their own gain. They deserve their fate. Not like those Danarius set me against.”

“But you kill them because I put you in front of them.”

Must he be so damned difficult? “Yes, all right, killing on someone else’s word does  _occasionally_  make me think of…back then. But I’ve told you, it’s  _different.”_

“Different.” Hawke gazes across the table, half his face in shadow, the other half illuminated in maple-orange light that shows, in excruciating detail, the guilt he either can’t or hasn’t tried to hide. “You said…it’s been three years since you escaped, isn’t that right? More, now?”

“Yes.”

“And even after all that time, something about me reminded you of—him.”

Something reminded Fenris of— _nothing_  about Hawke reminds him of Danarius! Fenris is about to declare that in no uncertain terms, but that approach hasn’t worked so far, so he pauses for a moment to think.

And takes a deep breath.

“When I was younger—seventeen years old, I believe—Danarius brought me to Qarinus for a meeting with other magisters about the Seheron offensive. He brought me everywhere, I was…favored. Qarinus is close to Seheron, and has its dangers, viddathari walking the streets—humans who follow the Qun. So at his home there he had me sleep in his room, should any assassins attempt to take his life in the night. But on this particular night, I had a terrible dream—I don’t remember what it was, exactly, only that I was crying out for help and no one would help me. The point is, my shouting and thrashing woke Danarius.

“So the next morning, he was yawning, shuffling about, and kept on muttering about how he hoped his lack of sleep the previous night wouldn’t cause him any detriment—perhaps it might slow his reactions against any potential attackers, or dull his wits during the meeting. He never told me it was my fault, never said those words, yet he made it abundantly clear I had committed a grave transgression, one that might—“ Fenris cracks a dry smile. “—horror of horrors, bring harm to my master. And you must understand, without any memories to depend upon, Danarius was all I had. All I knew.

“It became too much. At last I threw myself upon his mercy, begged him to punish me for my wrongdoings. He, of course, happily agreed, and ordered me to strip down right there in the main hall.” Fenris stares at the wood grain of the tabletop, wondering how much to say. He thought he would be more hesitant to reveal all of this, as he never has to anyone else. But right now, at this moment, he feels as if he could tell Hawke everything. He would expect that to frighten him more, but instead he approaches the decision with curiosity, and a delicate hand—it’s fragile, and he doesn’t want to shatter it before it’s been given its chance. So he takes advantage of the moment, the one open door in the dark, shuttered keep of his shameful past.

“I hadn’t expected him to do it right then,” Fenris continues. “His guests were supposed to be arriving soon. But I obeyed, because it was the least I could do to make up for my mistakes. He had me turn to face the wall. Then he began whipping me, my back and my ass.”

Hawke flinches. Fenris goes on without pausing. “He was…experienced with a whip by that point, and was particularly vicious that day. I’m not sure why—perhaps the lack of sleep had shortened his temper. It was…awful. And even worse, I began to hear other voices in the hall, the sound of laughter—his guests, arrived for the meeting, watching me naked, writhing in pain. I bore it for as long as I could, but the agony was too much, and at last I recoiled, turned to Danarius and begged him to stop.”

Odd how far away it all seems now. It used to be that Fenris’s skin would prickle constantly with the phantom sensation of the whip cutting into him, yet now he can’t even remember what it felt like, not even the quality of the pain. “This was, as you might imagine, the wrong choice to make. Danarius towered above me, his anger undiminished by what he’d done to me so far. He told me that I had interrupted the punishment, and suggested perhaps I wasn’t truly penitent after all. Immediately I felt like an ungrateful wretch—here, my master, who bought me fine clothes and weapons, who praised me, who cherished me, and I repaid that with arrogance, with false contrition. So I apologized, over and over, pleaded with him to continue, and to punish me again for the interruption.”

The other magisters had watched, gathered loosely in the middle of the hall, talking and laughing. Yet another layer of guilt, to embarrass Danarius in front of his guests—what kind of magister would own a slave so unruly? “So he whipped me for another long minute, this time on my chest and stomach. And then he beat me, with great strikes of force magic so he wouldn’t dirty his hands. Each time I buckled or fell, he would wait for me to stand again, so he could strike me once more. I think that was the part he liked best, watching me present myself for him to hurt.

“When he was finished he ordered me to clean up the blood.” Which was everywhere, splatters of red sullying the rose-colored marble of the walls and floor. “So I dressed once more, my open wounds slowly staining my clothes, and found a rag and some water. And scrubbed the floor while my master spoke with his guests. This was not a task I normally performed—Danarius usually left it to his less expensive slaves. That day it was the final stage of my punishment.

“Afterwards he sent for a healer, who mended my face and fixed my broken ribs. She did stop the bleeding of my wounds but left them as scabs that would catch on the fabric of my clothes, so they would continue to hurt whenever I moved. And Danarius came when she was finished and told me how pleased he was. That I was good and had proven myself worthy, and I had made him very happy.” Fenris meets Hawke’s eye, at last, needing to say this aloud, needing  _someone_  to hear it. “I nearly wept for joy. Do you understand? To have pleased my master—that was  _all_  I wanted, in the entire world. My master, the man who had just forced me to strip and whipped me bloody in front of a half-dozen people. Who had manipulated me into  _begging_ him to inflict that on me. Is that something you would do to me, Hawke?”

“No!” Hawke sounds on the edge of panic. “That’s—awful! I wouldn’t—“

“Then what would you have me do?”

“Nothing! I don’t know, I just—you’re my friend and I—“ He lunges forward, grasping Fenris’s hand awkwardly, then jerks away a moment later. “Maker forgive me, I’m sorry, you’ve said you don’t like—“

To be touched. Fenris has said that, yet that brief moment of contact— “No, it’s—it’s quite all right. You don’t have to—“  _Don’t have to stop._

Hawke reaches out again, more composed this time, and takes Fenris’s hand. “You’re my friend, and I care about you and want you to be happy. And hearing all these things just makes me sick, because you didn’t deserve any of that. And if following me makes you think of—him, then I don’t want you to feel as if you have to. I know I helped you when we first met, but I never thought of you as owing a debt to me for it, and even if there  _was_  a debt it’s no doubt been paid off by now.”

Fenris gazes at their conjoined hands. Hawke’s skin is warm on his own. When was the last time someone touched him like this? With empathy, with simple kindness? “Do you enjoy having me along when you go running around Kirkwall, or off to the Vimmarks, or the Wounded Coast?”

“Well—yes, I do. Very much.” Hawke’s hand tightens, infinitesimally. “But if it’s making you unhappy, then you don’t have to come with me. I wouldn’t want you to be hurting for my sake.”

“Hawke—“ Fenris grins, unable to hold it back anymore. “I  _am_  happy. Happier than I’ve ever been. Do you know what it’s like, having been a slave for twelve years and a fugitive for three, only to find somewhere I feel safe, for the first time in my life? And it’s not the place, Kirkwall is a city like any other, it’s  _you._  You, who offered me friendship, the chance to build something I could call a home. If my old life surfaces now and then, well, neither of us should be surprised. That’s all I knew for over a decade. I look forward now to replacing it with better memories. It will take time, of course, but that’s all I need.” Fenris slips his thumb around Hawke’s fingers. “Just time.”

The sun has slid down by now, and Hawke stares at him in the darkening kitchen, his gaze no less earnest for being half-obscured. “You—you have no idea how glad it makes me to hear that you feel safe.”

“I do, Hawke.  _Especially_  with you. You are nothing like Danarius. You are—a friend.”

It seems to have done the trick, finally. Hawke is relaxed, the guilt gone. A smile breaks on his face. “I’m sorry for making you tell me that story. I just—got all caught up in my own head, I suppose.”

“It’s all right. I truly did not mind.” Fenris discovers he actually feels much better for having done it. One fewer thing pinned down fractious inside of him, struggling to be known.

There’s a silence between them. Not awkward, like this afternoon—more like a moment they’re both glad to have, and the silence all the better to savor it. Fenris doesn’t want it to end, and tries to think of some excuse—

Hawke gently takes his hand back. “I’ve taken up enough of your time already, I should—“

But Fenris won’t have that, won’t let something as banal as propriety get in the way of what they both want. “Are you sure you don’t want a cup of wine before you go? I’ve only just opened the bottle.”

Hawke hesitates, then grins. “Well. I suppose I can stay just a little longer.”


End file.
